Voicebreak

Sorry, my voice broke again  
I didn't mean to trip over my own words  
I guess I let it get out of hand  
it happens when I get a little excited  
I know when left to its own devices  
my voice goes a little wild,  
punches a wall and causes shockwaves  
because of the passionate verbal tempest  
thrashing inside,  
with the urge to electrify  

But they say the mind can be a prison  
and mine is padded with reinforced rubber  
built by anxiety patrol and the tone police,  
thus when I try to speak,  
my thoughts are cut in half,  
the impact lost hitting anxious rubber,  
so my mouth and my voice try to spit out what it can  
in record time,  
in rapid-fire succession,  
even if I trip,  
even if my words scatter and need recollection,  
even if autocorrect can't be installed in my lips,  
before it all withers into the aether,  
because too many times, those words have been dampened,  
from wanting to save someone else's peace  
while my piece flounders from going unheard  
 
I know you've got a point in there somewhere  
Guess I can't see it when I am over-shadowed  
by your obsession to have the last word;  
your weird little fetish of wanting to be "right"  
 
I am just trying to speak; I am trying not to squeak  
I am just trying to utter, without the quake of stutter  
I am just trying to be heard; I am not trying to be a burden  
 
But when your ears perk up, threatened,  
fueled by your self-imposed superiority,  
Suddenly, my words are irrelevant;  
I guess listening becomes less endearing  
when you've got selective hearing  
 
And controlling my tongue equals your dominion  
in your false quest for peace and complacency  
But peace can't exist unless we all have a piece,  
and your comfort is upheld by silent pillars,  
and aching shoulders,  
and dried up blood,  
and heaving, quiet sobs,  
and a fragile painted smile  
whose lips are a faded shell of their former vibrant hue,  
whose eyes have lost their star shine,  
whose throat is parched for a word in edgewise  
 
And yet part of me still falters,  
Part of me loses my momentum  
when I'm running faster than my anxieties  
and my rusty, cobweb-littered cogwheels of speaking my mind can handle  
when my traction is stopped dead in its tracks by  
 
"You don't know what you're talking about"  
"You don't know more than me"  
"You're missing my point"  
"You don't talk to me that way"  
 
Which way should I go then?  
I've learned respect is a two-way street,  
but we're not always driving in the same direction  
and maybe staying in my lane is safer  
but when you're coming directly at me in opposition,  
with spitfire precision,  
with silencing tactics,  
with nothing but a desire to shut me up,  
respectfully,  
I will not sit quietly and let you run me down,  
and I will draw the lanes on Respect St. myself,  
if I have to,  
if it serves to visually show you the boundaries  
I have now made for myself  
 
So the next time you hear my voice break,  
know that is not your opportunity  
to go in for the kill,  
to step over my pauses,  
to steal my breath between phrases,  
to stifle a struggling sentiment,  
know that it's not because I am broken;  
it is because I am learning to  
break free.